


the ground all around (it was always holy)

by datteba (ineachandeveryway)



Series: like a sword upon our hearts [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: (Loosely) Canon Divergence, Gen, post-698
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:07:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24915856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineachandeveryway/pseuds/datteba
Summary: The face of every other person in the pews looks on in utter disdain, and he can’t see it, but he feels it. He feels how much he is hated here, and how much he continues to take these people by surprise.But he also remembers that day the sun hung low in the sky over their bodies, remembers admitting to a longing for strength unencumbered and free, and he aches for it still./ Or, Sasuke makes the decision to free himself of his burdens—and Konoha's expectations.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura & Yamanaka Ino, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto
Series: like a sword upon our hearts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1803052
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	the ground all around (it was always holy)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a series I've been planning to write for almost three years. It started out as an attempt to write one Naruto fic for every The Oh Hellos song in existence, but eventually it turned into an outlet for all of my post-canon Naruto lore and musings. So, here we are, at the very beginning. 
> 
> This follows events immediately after the end of the Fourth Shinobi World War, so it retcons canon about halfway through Chapter 699. I intend to explore a lot of different characters and relationship dynamics, so hopefully regardless of what you ship, there'll be a little of something for everyone. It won't be necessary to read every work in this series, as I'm sure some works will be read fine as stand-alones, but reading all of them will obviously add to the experience! 
> 
> Please look to the end notes for my personal musings on this particular work (or 'chapter'). Title is taken from ["Grow"](https://genius.com/The-oh-hellos-grow-lyrics) by The Oh Hellos. As always, comments are appreciated, and I hope you enjoy!

Sasuke Uchiha has never witnessed the Fifth Hokage so white-knuckled in his entire life. 

He stands at odds with her in a dimly-lit enclosure, carved out several hundred meters below Konoha’s grounds. A blindfold wraps around his eyes, but he senses easily the tight clench of Tsunade’s hand in the way that he can anticipate Sakura throwing a punch. 

The Hokage’s lip curls, and she struggles to form words. Ibiki, off to the side, holds her arm at the ready as if anticipating something, too. A pair of torches glows at the entrance to the enclosure, but the air feels cold and rife with explosive tension. 

Every body in the room is still and wary, but shock is a palpable thing and it soaks through every pore. The bulk of his tribunal has no more words to offer than their leader, and he relishes in that with the smallest of smiles. 

“He’s mocking us,” Shikamaru mutters, a break in the silence. The Hokage’s new secondary advisor eyes Sasuke skeptically from his seat in the fifth pew, designated for fledgling clan heads. If memory serves, his father was blown to bits as collateral in the war. “Shut up,” Ino parries. Her father was, too. 

They’re the most familiar faces in the room, but this offers Sasuke little comfort. He never remembers connecting much with anyone else outside of Team 7. Everything irrelevant around him always blurred to account for one focus. He was reliable like that, in a sense. His anger, if concentrated on a singular point, sometimes proved to be useful. 

A little bit like now. 

It’s not every day, after all, that a prisoner of war chooses to outline every shortcoming of the tools being used to shackle him. Sasuke has spent the past month concentrating on nothing but, empty space and time allowing him to work towards the one thing that would anger the tribunal before him more than anything: powerlessness. 

“And to what do we owe such an analysis, Sasuke?” Tsunade finally speaks up, not as cowed as she was moments ago. 

He can tell by her voice that it both infuriates and fascinates her, and though Sasuke would be loath to admit that he’s surprised, he suddenly despises his ability to make people who don’t matter care; somehow in the depths of this dark hollow it feels worse. 

“I don’t intend to be held back by this village a third time,” he answers forcefully, straining just a little against the straitjacket and blindfold, though everyone knows now that he’s never actually needed to. 

His breath catches at the realization. 

Because he chose to remain in this lightless pit for days of his own accord, and no one could have predicted it. The face of every other person in the pews looks on in utter disdain, and he can’t see it, but he feels it. He feels how much he is hated here, and how much he continues to take these people by surprise. 

But he also remembers that day the sun hung low in the sky over their bodies, remembers admitting to a longing for strength unencumbered and free, and he aches for it still. 

_Stay, just for a little while._ Naruto’s thumb on his cheek felt like a promise, like a death wish. _Let them know that you’re not a threat._

The village of Konoha has threatened his entire existence; has threatened his family, his morals, his truth. He wears these scars on his mind like rivers of sweat down the flat of his back. Calm, cool, sunken-in. There is no forgetting what a place has done to make a child feel like they deserve death. There is no rage that erases that— _ever._

But there is some solace—some split-second peace of mind—in thinking that he can make it clear Konoha is no longer a threat to _him_. He’ll walk away from these walls today completely of his own willpower, and for once it might mean something more. 

Sasuke says, “I’m leaving,” and suddenly that’s that. No qualms, no contest. 

Two hands come up on either side of his face, followed by a muttered _jutsu_ from a quiet voice. The blindfold comes off. His world is thrown into dull brown color, a shade lighter than the darkness that enveloped it since weeks prior. 

Shikamaru stares at him blankly for a moment, but Ino comes up from behind and pulls her best friend away in stride, a mixed glance of sadness and relief being all that she can offer. Sasuke is a boy she used to do nothing but dream about, and maybe she still does, in some small capacity, but the times have changed. 

He’s not a boy worth fighting for anymore, that’s all. 

Each member of the tribunal files out like a whisper, like they were never there to begin with, and Sasuke is reminded that always, his existence will mean so much and so little to this place, to its people. 

“You’ll leave today?” Tsunade asks, touching his back. She’s the only one left behind. The callouses on her hands scrape against his body as she undoes several seals, but the action is gentle, measured, restrained. 

He can tell she’s simmering down, little by little, so he chooses to be honest. “Why would I stay?” 

The sleeves of the straitjacket and its body fall away, leaving his back bare. Tsunade hands him a set of clothes, black and blue trim, Uchiha seal embroidered large and bright into the back of a cloak so it stares him straight in the face. 

“They love you, you know.” Her brow furrows, and she looks away as he changes. “I can’t begin to understand what’s between the three of you, and I’ve scolded them all too many times for running after you, but you _are_ here now.” 

Sasuke pulls a gray sash around his waist and ties the ends together. The collar of his cape sticks up and brushes against his hair, longer and more jagged than it’s ever been in his life. He hasn’t even had the chance to feel the stubble on his face. “Razor,” he murmurs. 

Tsunade clears her throat. “I don’t need to ask those two to know that they expect you to stay. So do whatever it is that you need to do to make sure they don’t run after you again.” She fixes him with a hard stare. “I won’t run after children.” 

Sasuke mulls over the words silently, knowing no follow-up answer he has to offer would ever be good enough. His time under Tsunade’s watch was short, but he sees in her eyes how fiercely she cares for her students. Naruto and Sakura are akin to her own children.

He wonders if he might have been spared that affection had he stayed long enough to receive it. Despite his apathy towards school work, Sasuke still remembers textbook history. Tsunade’s grandfather, the First Hokage, had been a friend to the Uchihas; and he never saw any malice in her eyes either, despite the frustration that eventually settled there. 

Perhaps, like with Naruto and Sakura, that was what alarmed him. 

But Tsunade turns crisply on her heel before he can finish the thought, marching out of the enclosure and into the next segment of a tunnel. Sasuke blinks as a loud clap resonates suddenly from the dark echo chamber. He can just make out her figure from across the long distance, 

“Well?” she calls clearly. “I won’t wait all day!” 

Her voice reminds him of Naruto’s and Sakura’s before battle. He hasn’t seen daylight in thirty days, but the clothes on his back are clean and warm, and he can touch his hands to his face. He feels a peace of mind he hasn’t allowed himself in years. 

Sasuke walks out into the rocky hall and feels the world collapse behind him. A prison for thirty days now means nothing as it crumbles into dirt paths, insects, and stone, natural earth unnaturally reformed. 

At the end of the tunnel is a platform attached to a pulley, and Tsunade waits for him there, arms crossed, face stern. Ibiki hovers at her right shoulder, a patient shadow, the scars that cross his face barely visible from this distance. 

No one is down here willingly for kilometres on either side, but here he survived for a month and proved something more. Freedom was a bird, was a hawk that took shape in his mind and flew outward, until he held it in his hands and let it tend to his heart. 

How did he waste so much time searching for strength in the wrong places? It’s a silly question to ask, and he doesn’t dare dwell on it, but the thought, while fleeting, is nonetheless glaringly present. He touches his right hand absently to the stump on his left, feeling for the first time what is no longer there. 

It’s a small price to pay, for certain realizations. 

Sasuke steps forward and walks into the light. 

* * *

“Come on, come on, come _on_.” 

Sakura jabs the point of a sharpened pencil into her notepad, glaring at each pockmark she inflicts into the paper’s surface. Four hours have passed since Ino called her with the first piece of confidential info she’s been offered in weeks—that today, Konoha’s makeshift tribunal will decide its most outstanding war criminal’s fate. 

The possibilities have since plagued Sakura’s mind, and her rounds with Shizune at the hospital have flown by in a haphazard blur. She can’t bring herself to think of anything else after a month of uncompromising radio silence. Her recent responsibilities have been passed off as necessities of post-war recuperation, but deep down, she knows better. 

This past month has been nothing but busy work for her and Naruto because it’s been the easiest way to keep their questions at bay. To keep judgment and bias out of the Hokage’s decisions because her students love the boy that she keeps in a cage. 

Not even Ino dared to break protocol until today, and Sakura suspects it’s because news of the tribunal’s decision will filter quickly through the village anyway. Her best friend spared her a small kindness in letting her know something first, though she doesn’t know that it matters now. It’s been hours since the trial allegedly commenced. 

“Sa-ku-ra.” Shizune, seated off to the side and hurriedly scrawling notes into a chart, offers Sakura a pointed and sidelong glance. “Those charts won’t update themselves, you know.” She watches curiously as Sakura continues to disfigure her notepad, necessary additions to her charts be damned. 

“As if I don’t know that,” Sakura huffs, albeit quietly. Current apprehensions aside, she has enough self control not to admonish Shizune completely. The Hokage’s surrogate niece certainly has influence on her judgement, but not for a case like this. Not for something that could so easily break the village right at its roots, but also leave it completely untouched if it goes the other way. 

This decision is something left in the hands of the elite, which is funny, because Sakura thought she’d cemented herself as a part of that crowd. It was her out on the front lines with every other major player; it was _her_ at Tsunade’s side. 

And yet, evidently, class structure in Konoha will always reign superior. Ino is the tragic survivor and the head of her clan—Sakura is not. 

_I’m asking you, humbly, to trust me. As your Hokage, and as someone who cares for the pair of you immensely. Trust me._

Sakura balls her fists, bows her head over the reception desk’s counter and grits her teeth. The pencil in her right hand starts to splinter within her grasp, and she exhales in frustration. Enough waiting. 

_Enough._

Five years of uncertainty and fear have wasted away under her finger tips, and she knows that they count for something, _should_ count for something, but the thought of the end result still fills her with fury and dread. 

Shizune doesn’t stop her when she leaves the charts behind and makes for the stairwell, wordlessly sifting through people in the hallway. The patients here have grown used to this aura of burgeoning anger around her. They’ve seen it simmer long enough underneath the surface, Sakura’s kindness an armor holding it at bay. 

Because after all of these years of crying and begging for Sasuke to come home, not even a day with him could be spared for her and Naruto before he was taken away—not even a moment’s peace. The people of this village have grown to hate him, his actions beyond their comprehension, but some of them have quieted in the face of her and Naruto’s fervor. 

Sakura has seen the pity in their eyes, now moreso than ever. 

“I am so _sick_ of—” 

“ _Hey_.” A voice stops her in her tracks. 

Ino stands at the foot of the flight of stairs staring at her, eyes wide in alarm. Her hair is unkempt and her arms bead with sweat, a consequence of walking to the hospital as quickly as possible under cover of the beating sun. 

Sakura latches onto the banister at her right and gulps, unsure which one of them will dare to speak first. All of the possibilities from before smash into her brain like glass on concrete. It has to be the worst, she realizes. Nothing good can come of a face that looks like that. Her legs give a little and she lets out a whimper, suddenly feeling nauseous. 

“ _Hey!”_

Ino climbs quickly, peeling Sakura’s hand off of the banister and hauling her up from under her shoulders. Sakura blinks slowly as Ino lays her palms along the flush of her cheeks. Her hands are clammy and cold, but it feels nice. Unadulterated concern is etched into the crinkle of skin around her eyes, and she frowns in disapproval. “Snap out of it, okay? Sasuke is fine. He’s fine.” 

Her fingers go to Sakura’s hairline out of habit, sorting through loose strands and pushing them back neatly behind her ears. Sakura shuts her eyes and lets out a stuttered breath. “Fine” can’t be the end of it with someone like Sasuke. It never has been. 

Ino hardly takes more than a moment to confirm. “He’s leaving, Konoha, though,” she continues, wetting her thumb. She wipes a speck of dirt from Sakura’s left cheek, then steps back to inspect her handiwork. A kink in the shirt collar’s fabric catches her eye, and her face comes close again as she irons out the pleat, adding absently, “He announced it to the entire tribunal.” 

Sakura feels robbed of breath. It’s the admission that she’s been waiting nearly a whole month to hear; because a part of her had wondered, had realized and feared. He would never stay in a place like this. Not for a second. There was too much baggage that came with the territory. 

“Did he mention when he’d leave?” she asks, voice gravelly. For all she knows, he could be walking past the village gates right now as they’re speaking. Anyone else’s importance to him certainly hasn’t stopped him before, although Itachi isn’t here to pull him away from them either. 

Sakura remembers a time she held tightly onto Sasuke’s shirt, short nails digging into his shirt sleeves as if they could keep him anchored there, within reach of her arms. It was the selfish plea of a child unencumbered by grief, or perhaps so overwhelmed with it she didn’t know how else to handle it. 

Ino steps back again and holds her by the arm encouragingly. “I’m not sure,” she answers. She pauses for a moment, as if turning the question around in her head. 

The stairwell is empty except for the two of them standing there, on the seventh step down from the hospital’s fourth floor, and Sakura realizes it’s been a long time since they talked like this. Always about Sasuke or her lack of self-confidence, but that kind of conversation feels familiar, feels a little like home. Being with Ino has made her brave. 

“I can think of one place he’d go before leaving,” says her best friend, and she asks petulantly, “You do?” Because Ino has also always been the one with the answers. It’s been the standard transaction of their friendship for years. 

Ino snorts and dissolves quickly into laughter. “You aren’t the only one halfway in love with him, you know,” she says, shoving Sakura a little. “God knows how much he’s been hounding Shikamaru. The pair of you, insufferable.” She vaguely waves her hands in the air, but Sakura smiles in understanding. 

A lot of people have gone to the trouble of helping them more than they’ve deserved. It’s something she’s always been aware of, but she realizes now the strain that it’s put on their friends. Supporting this near-impossible cause has never been easy, and it’s weighed down immensely on all of their shoulders. 

“You do too much for me,” Sakura says, new life born into the words. Ino opens her mouth and blinks in surprise, cheeks flushing. She’s always been one to complain about being used, mostly for her own petty purposes, but maybe Sakura reciprocating that sentiment isn’t something she expected. It takes a short moment for her to recollect herself, and she bows her head slightly, bangs falling over her eyes. 

“I do, don’t I?” 

The two feet of space between them on the stair steps looms large, but not in a way that’s uncomfortable. It’s a loving, healthy distance, and Sakura wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world. There’s a value in being able to stand up on her own two feet. 

“Buy you dinner later?” she asks. She extends a hand wiped down of sweat on her skirt. 

Ino parries, “And breakfast. I have the late shift.” 

“Deal.” 

“ _Deal._ ”

And then they shake on it.

* * *

Naruto has always expected this, contrary to what most people may have expected of _him_. He knows the constraints of this village, knows the Uchiha compound has laid in ruins for years upon years for a reason. It was never meant to be a home again, or at least, not for the Sasuke that he knows now. 

He perches precariously on the edge of his bed, watching as Sasuke traces a razor down either side of his mouth above the bathroom sink. Naruto is reminded that the mirror is stained or rusted in several places when Sasuke mutters in annoyance under his breath. His apartment is still a wreck of a place, little improved for as long as he’s lived there. There have simply been more important things to worry about over the years than redecoration. 

“So where do you plan on going?” he asks. A small utility pouch is placed next to the bathroom door, kunai poking out from the opening at the top. It’s a surprise that Sasuke was afforded any weapons at all before leaving the village, but Naruto doesn’t question it. Maybe the very fact of him leaving was why buying them was allowed. 

“Hell if I know.” The sink sputters into silence as Sasuke washes away the last of the shaving cream from his face. He shifts to reach for a towel but stops short of the other wall, something in the mirror catching his eye. 

Naruto laughs. “What now?” Sasuke has been holed up in his bathroom for the past half-hour, picking apart at dirt under his nails and shaving the stubble from his skin. Only the clothes he’s wearing look new.

He tugs at the tangled ends of his hair in front of the mirror, sniffing them once before slanting his lips in a frown. “I’m taking a shower,” he says, turning slightly. 

Naruto sits up in protest, about to say that he’s run out of shampoo and needs to make a trip to the store, but the door firmly shuts before he can get in a word. There’s body wash in there, he thinks. Sakura has scolded him more than once about it not being a real alternative, but he supposes it’s enough for now, or has to be. 

A timer rings in the kitchen, signaling water boiling in a pot on the stove. Naruto sighs and pads over. He has five packets of ramen left that are just about to expire, and there’s no better reason to use them than in a grand send-off for his best friend—who’s going Hamura knows where. He cracks the ramen cakes in quarters and drops them in, humming along as he stirs with a fresh pair of chopsticks. 

Sakura will be barging in any time now, he’s sure, demanding to know why she’s been left out of the loop when he can hardly control where Sasuke chooses to go. It’s a strange dynamic that’s been created between the three of them, stretched and pulled over the years in every which way, but where they are now isn’t anything bad. 

It’s just a little uncertain, and the thought of that excites him. 

The water in the bathroom starts to run, little tendrils of steam slipping out from under the door within minutes. Naruto leaves one hand at the stove and uses the other to peruse his cupboards and grab spice bottles in between his fingers. It all feels a little domestic, using his home for someone other than himself after spending all of his years alone in it. He likes the idea of that. 

A bang sounds at the front door, and he breaks into a grin. “It’s open, Sakura-chan!” he calls, though Sakura marches in before he can even finish. Her brows are furrowed and she looks about the studio, zeroing in first on the shut bathroom door, then his place at the stove. 

“He’s in there, isn’t he?” she says, not entirely accusatory, but he can tell that she’s annoyed in the way she holds herself. It’s too similar to the way Tsunade looks when she’s holding a meeting with her advisers. 

Naruto nods, still unable to contain his smile. “He’s just taking a shower. I made ramen, want some?” 

“That depends. Is it a peace offering?” Sakura walks up next to him, reaching for the bowls he always has stacked in one corner of the kitchen. He steps to the side as she opens a drawer and takes out chopsticks. 

“Hm? For what?” 

“For not getting me from the hospital, Naruto! How was I supposed to know he came here? I’m just lucky that Ino guessed right.” She shoots him an exasperated look as he touches a hand to the back of his neck. Naruto wonders how he ought to tell her that he expected her to come here anyway, because of her good intuition. Despite it being a compliment, he doesn’t think she’ll take it the right way. 

“Sorry,” he says instead, grinning sheepishly, “guess I’ll try to remember next time.” 

Sakura can only sigh. “And who knows when that will be?” Her voice is quiet as she takes the bowls and chopsticks in one hand and the place mats in the other. Naruto stirs the last of the extra spices into the pot, then follows her to the table. He doesn’t have any serving dishes, nor anything else that would make the minimal set-up look remotely appealing. 

He’s serving them ramen on the brink of good-taste expiration, so perhaps even hoping for that much is a fever dream. 

The water in the bathroom ceases to run as he goes back for a water pitcher, and Sakura freezes up. She places the last of the chopsticks on the table and takes a seat at the end closest to the front door, hands folded in her lap. Her eyes look panicked. 

Naruto finds himself at a loss for words again; half of the battle with Sakura when it comes to Sasuke is knowing what to say and when to say it, a skill better employed by Ino than anyone else. He comes back to take his seat and suffices for reaching across the table, squeezing her shoulder in a quiet gesture. “It’ll be alright, dattebayo.” 

Sasuke finally steps out with a towel to his head. He’s donned the same clothes from earlier again, the blue of the fabric reminiscent of shirts from his childhood. Coupled with the fact that his face is clean-shaven, he looks almost like the ninja he might have been had he stayed. 

“I thought you’d be at the hospital,” he deadpans, sliding into his seat. Sakura lifts her head, previously bowed. “I was, but I—I thought you’d be here, so I. . .” 

He takes the chopsticks in front of him and snaps them loudly down the middle, not bothering to wait for Naruto to officially commence the meal. Sakura quiets down and returns to looking into her lap. Even now, it’s hard for her not to be flustered when talking to him. His manner of speaking cuts unnecessary corners. 

Naruto takes his portion from the pot and stares keenly between them. “You said you were going to go to the hospital before leaving anyway,” he offers, thinking now might be a time where breaking the silence will help, “so maybe this just makes it easier. Right, Sakura-chan?”

After glaring daggers at him, she mutters uncomfortably, “Sure.” Her ramen gets a prod or two from her chopsticks, but she makes no real move to eat it. 

The singular window in the apartment, also broken, suddenly whistles as wind slips past. The empty left sleeve of Sasuke’s shirt barely flutters because of it, but both Naruto’s and Sakura’s eyes zero in on the movement. 

Sasuke looks up from his ramen, peeved. “If the two of you aren’t going to eat, I’ll walk out right now.” He points his chopsticks at Sakura, whose face reddens when she realizes he’s supposed to be pointing to the door. 

“I _am_ eating!” she retorts. She digs into her ramen, grumbling around her chopsticks as she shoves in a mouthful. Naruto laughs off to the side and takes note of the small smile suddenly present on Sasuke’s lips. He seems to be surveying their reactions constantly, eyes trained on their faces every time he swallows a bite. 

Each one of them is hungry for each other. It’s only a month that they were apart, but something inside Naruto aches at Sasuke finally being this close, in this place. Maybe that’s why there aren’t many words to say between them—they never prepared for it. 

The room takes upon a comfortable silence, though, the three of them digging hungrily into the impromptu meal. Sakura can’t help but startle when Sasuke pours everyone second portions, and Naruto almost offers to split her portion and help her finish. She smacks his arm with her chopsticks and chides him. “I can handle two boils just fine, you know.” 

They eat and they eat until every plate is clean, any leftover sauce in the pot scraped away with their fingers—“Naruto, that’s unhygienic!”—and then the weight of the moment settles over them like ice. Naruto isn’t opposed to Sasuke leaving, can hardly blame him for wanting to, but still a few hours’ time with him feels far too short. 

“It’s not like last time,” Sasuke says, as if reading his mind. “I’ll visit.” 

Naruto leans his head against his hand and smirks. “Yeah, when we’re least expecting it.” 

“You’re not a fan of surprises?”

“ _I_ don’t mind them. Sakura-chan, though. . .” He beams at her and laughs. “She’ll have my head on a plate if I can’t tell her where you are.” 

“Hey, I never said that!” 

“You kept asking me where he was the whole time he was in custody.” 

“Tsunade-sama likes you.” 

“She likes _you_ more, dattebayo.” 

“Three hundred metres below the Intelligence Division Headquarters,” Sasuke cuts in, somehow appearing bored and exasperated all at once. He turns to Sakura and asks genuinely, “Ino didn’t tell you?” 

“She told me the tribunal was being held today, but that was only an hour before it started.” Sakura cards her hair through her fingers and pushes it back. Her eyes are sad. “Naruto and I have been in the dark for weeks.” 

Naruto remembers her complaining to him about her shifts at the hospital one day, and how Shizune had her working as many as was legally possible to distract her. He’d been given his own slew of responsibilities to tend to around the village, helping people rebuild or substituting for classes at the Shinobi Academy (though he didn’t know that he qualified much for the latter). 

Maybe, if either of them had been allowed visitation, this lunch would feel like enough. But as it is, the time that’s passed since Sasuke knocked on his door amounts to little more than a few hours. He’s leaving, and Naruto knows there’s no real promise of when he’ll be back, or if. 

Sasuke sighs. “I can’t stay here,” he says, final. “You know that.” 

Sakura looks the most pained by the words; she turns away, hair shielding her face from their view. The complexities of the Uchiha massacre aren’t lost on her but unrevealed in the detail that fully understanding them requires. Naruto is still unsure whether it’s his place to tell her, or if Sasuke ever intends to sit her down and explain himself. 

“I’ll write, if it helps.” It’s a general statement, but Naruto knows who it’s for. Sakura sniffs and wipes something from her eyes. “You better,” she mumbles. 

The three of them stand up from their seats as if on cue, shuffling between the kitchen and the dining table to put things in place. Sasuke sorts through the contents of his utility pouch again and pulls Sakura off to the side as Naruto starts on the dishes. 

“Make sure you redress it regularly,” she says once everything is said and done, and Sasuke looks ready to be off. He fits two rolls of gauze into the pouch, then slings it over his shoulder. Naruto stands with something held between his hands behind his back, and he brandishes it with a grin. 

“I thought you should have it. You know, as a reminder.” 

It’s the forehead protector from all those years ago, slash still ingrained deep into the metal. Sasuke takes it in his hands, frowns first, then smiles. “I don’t plan on losing to you a second time. I’ve learned my lesson.” 

“Ah, you never know.” 

Sakura claps the back of Naruto’s head. “Don’t encourage him, moron! I’ve had enough of the two of you fighting. The _village_ has.” Somehow she manages to level a look of disapproval at Sasuke, too, and he bows his head, smiling. 

The three of them are awkwardly still for a moment, no one person daring to make the move that will change everything. Sasuke is closest to the door, Naruto in front of him, while Sakura stands at the latter’s shoulder. It’s a far different picture from all those years ago, and Naruto is glad for it. 

He raises his fist. “Good luck, ‘ttebayo.” 

Sasuke returns the gesture, then grunts with a nod. “Thanks, Sakura,” he adds. His hand slips around the door knob as Sakura’s cheeks flush. Naruto considers offering to see him all the way to the village gates, but then Sasuke turns back, and there’s a peace in his expression that Naruto hasn’t seen in years. 

“Don’t miss me too much,” he says, closing the door behind him.

Naruto just laughs. 

**Author's Note:**

> I think freedom is a very important motif for Sasuke's character. He's someone forever shackled by other people's decisions and the trauma they've inflicted upon him, so to me, the ultimate justice for his character means giving him the wholehearted freedom to make decisions for his own happiness and benefit. I thought it'd be interesting if I tied this idea into his initial imprisonment by Konoha Intelligence following the conclusion of the War—because why would he allow himself to be put through that if he wasn't going to make a point out of it?
> 
> I think there's a sort of poetry in Sasuke leaving Konoha (at least temporarily) to look for better things in life, while Naruto and Sakura stay because they've made lasting relationships and goals there. They're more mature and capable of handling a dynamic like that now that they don't have to worry about Sasuke being consumed by his own hatred, so while it's a bittersweet notion, I think it's well justified in context of what each of them actually needs.


End file.
